FEATURE: Getting Started with AI

In talking to our clients over the last few months, including law firms and Fortune 100 companies, we know that many are beginning to actively embrace new ways to deliver legal services. They believe there’s a better way, and they suspect that artificial intelligence will be part of the solution to increase their team’s efficiency and improve their accuracy. Still, the common question we hear from law firms, legal operations, and legal departments is: “Where do we begin?”

From our own practical experience gained after nearly a decade working in AI, in addition to the many discussions we’ve had in 2017 with legal practitioners, technologists, and academics at conferences like CLOC, ILTA, SOLID and Legal Geek, we’ve collected some simple steps to keep in mind as you begin your first AI project:

Keep it simple. When identifying use cases, keep it simple. Often solving the least sexy problems can have the greatest impact. Look for high-volume/lower-value tasks that consume a disproportionate amount of lawyers’ time. NDA creation and expert advisor apps on FAQs are two great examples.

Take the opportunity to reengineer inefficient processes. Don’t just transfer an inefficient manual process to AI or other technology-enabled solution. Start by assessing what works and what doesn’t –and where appropriate, re-engineer the process before automating it.

Be realistic about resource needs. An AI project does not run itself. You need to map out a resource plan and identify roles and responsibilities for each member of the team. Suggested roles include legal expert, process engineer, and data analytics lead.

Measure outcomes. At the start of a project, benchmark metrics for the task at hand, such as the number of hours allocated, and the cost of completing each task. Then compare those metrics the 30, 60, and 90-day marks after deployment.

Communicate frequently. Communicate progress and impact to key constituencies, especially after a measurable impact can be demonstrated. Focus less on the technology itself, and more on improved outcomes, like boosting productivity and creating opportunities for lawyers to do higher-value work.

For more on “Getting Started with AI,” click here to watch our recent webinar on the subject (35-minute video).

Below, we’ve gathered news and insights, including stories on Allens winning an ILTA innovation award using a combination of Neota Logic and Kira Systems – and the new Neota Logic integration with Salesforce. We’ve also highlighted articles written by, or with contributions from, our employees, partners, and clients. And we’ve summarized some of our recent work with law schools. Neota Logic is proud to have been named a “2017 Cool Vendor for AI In Legal Affairs” by Gartner, but we look forward to being a Cool Service Provider, a Cool Partner, and a Cool Company to work with in 2018 and beyond!

TOP STORY

Allen & Overy’s aosphere launches Neota Logic regtech apps

Allen & Overy’s online legal information subscription business, aosphere, has launched three Neota Logic regulatory technology (regtech) apps to help financial services clients quickly obtain the legal information they need to minimize risk in complex transactions. The apps distill and tailor voluminous legal information to meet the needs of legal professionals on a case-by-case basis. “This is an exciting development for online legal services,” said Marc-Henri Chamay, CEO of aosphere. “Finding ways to make legal content more accessible to time-poor legal and compliance teams is our priority. It’s not enough to present clients with a 100-page document – clients want to know how the rules apply to them – and with confidence in the data. Using apps to surface multi-jurisdictional content, which is often incredibly complicated, is the natural next step in our journey of trying to simplify the complex.” More

NEWS BRIEFS

Allens wins ILTA innovation award with Neota Logic app

Allens won the Innovative Project of the Year award for its Real Estate Due Diligence App (REDDA) at the 2017 International Legal Technology Association Conference (ILTACON). The automated lease review solution combines a technical integration between Neota Logic and the Kira Systems contract review platform, along with the expertise of Allens legal staff to dramatically reduce the time to assess risk in commercial property leases. More

Leading Irish law firm and Neota Logic to create legal services solutions

McCann FitzGerald has entered into an agreement with Neota Logic to design and market apps to help McCann FitzGerald’s clients reduce the time and cost of legal work. “As a law firm on the cutting edge of legal services delivery, we’re always striving to find progressive new ways to have a positive impact on our clients’ business,” said Barry Devereux, Managing Partner of McCann FitzGerald. “Neota Logic’s technology is appealing because of its impressive track record for helping law firms to innovate and evolve the way they deliver services cost efficiently, yet without compromising legal advice, accuracy, and quality.” More

Neota Logic to automate contracts for Wesfarmers Limited

Neota Logic will automate non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) for Wesfarmers Limited, one of the largest corporations in the APAC region. The objective of the project is to reduce time and cost for the Wesfarmers legal team while generating first-rate legal work product. Julian Uebergang, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Neota Logic noted, “We’re thrilled that the Wesfarmers legal team has selected Neota Logic to support them in delivering legal services to their many businesses in a more accessible, efficient, and convenient way.” More

Neota Logic integrates with CRM leader, Salesforce

A new integration of Neota Logic into Salesforce allows Neota Logic clients to embed their expert advisor and document-creation apps directly into the client’s Salesforce instance, making it easier to leverage Salesforce data in the Neota Logic apps — and making the apps easier for users to access. “Incorporating Neota Logic’s reasoning capabilities into tools that our clients use every day, like Salesforce, makes those tools more powerful, our technology more versatile, and our client’s businesses more successful. It’s a win-win-win situation,” said Andrew Shimek, CEO of Neota Logic. More

Innovation think tank spotlights Neota Logic’s Julian Uebergang

The Centre for Legal Innovation (CLI) is an innovation-focused think tank at The College of Law in Australia, which provides thought leadership and other types of support to legal professionals globally. CLI recently recognized Neota Logic’s APAC Managing Director, Julian Uebergang, as an outstanding “legalpreneur,” who is “at the fore of a dramatic shake-up of how legal services will be offered by firms and within organizations.” More

Neota Logic and Kira present jointly at Legal Geek conference

Greg Wildisen, Neota Logic’s International Managing Director and Noah Waisberg, CEO and co-founder of Kira Systems, presented jointly at this year’s highly successful LegalGeek conference in London in October on “bricolage”: the combining of elements to create something better. To the surprise of the full house, Greg and Noah’s presentation started with them bringing on stage an avocado, bread, and a toaster. The hype around avocado toast as a hot menu item served as an analogy for the new combinations in legal tech – and underscored how combining technologies can create new tools and even new markets. See more on the LegalGeek conference from Richard Troman at Artificial Lawyerhere.

RECOMMENDED READING

Here are some articles to help keep you up-to-speed in the rapidly evolving space of legal AI:

Legaltech news: Susskind’s AI Bet: Too Far or Not Far Enough? Summarizes recent predictions for AI and law from Richard Suskind, the famed author and lecturer on the subject – and provides commentary from Ryan McClead, VP of Client Engagement and Strategy at Neota Logic. Read

Legaltech news: Escape the Backward Approach to Artificial Intelligence – Common-sense guidelines from Brad Blickstein for legal professionals looking for innovative tools that solve problems in the new era of legal practice. Read

NEOTA LOGIC IN LAW SCHOOLS

To help prepare their students for legal practice in the 21s century, numerous law schools around the world are teaching their students how to capture and leverage their legal expertise by creating Neota Logic apps. Here’s the latest from some of our law school programs:

Neota Logic law student app is centerpiece of $500,000 US DOJ grant to fight elder abuse

The Elder Law Risk Detector is a Neota Logic app that helps social service organizations detect legal problems involving their elderly home-bound clients. The app was originally developed by Georgetown University Law Center students using Neota Logic in their course on legal technology and innovation taught by Professor Tanina Rostain. Since its first deployment for the New York City elder services nonprofit, JASA, the app has been extended by Neota Logic and Pro Bono Net. Recently theUS Department of Justice granted approximately $500,000 to Pro Bono Net to further develop the app and create materials and programs to promote and supplement the app. CLICK HERE to watch a recent news video (2:08) about the app (which starts with a 15-second ad)

Cornell law students support immigrant rights with Neota Logic apps

This past semester, nine students in an immigration seminar at Cornell Law School used Neota Logic to create apps that provide legal assistance recent immigrants to the US. The course culminated with the spirited moot court-style competition described above.

Law students promote TRU justice with Neota Logic apps

This past semester, 20 students at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) Law School in British Columbia created a variety of apps to support the operations of local legal nonprofits. The Neota Logic course at TRU Law ended with students presenting their apps to a panel of judges the competitive (though friendly!) “Justice League Battle of the Apps” described above.

Melbourne Law students deploy apps to support youth rights

Law students at the University of Melbourne have designed and built a set of Neota Logic apps that provide members of the public and their legal advisors fast, accurate, and cost-effective information about common legal problems. Shown above is this year’s Melbourne Law Apps Bake Off, in which the apps were presented to a panel of judges. One team of Melbourne students recently launched its app that provides tailored legal information for young people on legal problems involving credit reports, fines, and employment rights. More

UTS Law students and Allens lawyers create apps for social justice

Students at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) worked with lawyers from Allens this semester in the Allens Neota Logic UTS Law Tech Challenge for Social Justice. Through the program, 20 UTS Law students and five Allens lawyers worked together over several months using Neota Logic to develop smart apps that promote social justice. The apps were tailored to meet the requirements of four partner not-for-profit organizations: Inner City Legal Centre Sydney, Anti-Slavery Australia, Refugee Advice and Casework Service (RACS), and The Aurora Project. Shown above are the proud students with some of their UTS and Allens mentors at the final app competition event. More

Neota Logic has entered into a partnership with LawWithoutWalls (LWOW), a global program that brings together lawyers, business professionals, and students to create innovations in legal education and practice. Pioneered by the University of Miami School of Law, the LWOW program is offered in conjunction with leading law and business schools. Each year, through LWOW, legal and business professionals work with students from law and business schools from around the globe. The multidisciplinary LWOW teams meet at a conference and design a software-based solution to a long-standing legal problem. (Shown above is an LWOW team collaborating in 2017.)

The new collaboration calls for Neota Logic to select a winning LWOW team whose plan is most ready for full-scale development into a deployable software system. Neota Logic will provide the technology and support to transform the winning team’s prototype into a working app. LWOW founder, Professor Michele DeStefano said, “We are thrilled that one our teams’ projects will be brought to life with Neota Logic’s technology and support. We’re excited to see how the selected team uses Neota Logic’s software to create an easy-to-use app which scales legal advice.” Visit lwow.org for more information. More about the Neota Logic university courses can be found here. Links to student-built Neota Logic apps are here.

Neota Logic is pleased to have been named a Cool Vendor in AI for Legal Affairs by Gartner

For a private demo of the Neota Logic platform and/or to see applications in action, please request a demo